Personalize the Sales Motion Process to Get Better Results

By Mary Beth Addison, senior vice president, Alchemer
Two people sitting on a giant smart phone, with one looking at a computer and one looking at a tablet

While CRMs include lots of information about the customer, they contain little or no insight on the customer’s expectations, past conversations, buyer values, or win themes. Most organizations don’t understand how to put true customer needs at the center of their sales process – instead focusing their processes on opportunity tracking, internal goals, and persona templates.

Organizations can optimize sales by putting the customer at the heart of the process – listening to customers by capturing feedback at every stage, recording it, and embedding it into existing systems to optimize the entire customer experience.

Enhance the Sales Motion Process
Too often, the sales motion process is more about talking than listening. Organizations talk about who they are and what they can offer. They tell the customer how the sales process works and what will happen next – yet many salespeople fail to take into account who the customer is and what they need.

Organizations that take the time to understand what customers need will find it easier to align internal checkpoints around their goals. As a result, they will be able to demonstrate value and build on it during the entire sales process – enabling the sales leadership team to understand what customers are looking for and also helping to build a strong, effective team.

Organizations need insights into won opportunities as well as lost opportunities. This will quickly uncover problem areas and coaching topics so sales leaders can mentor their reps. Having accurate, up-to-the-minute data and client information without having to leave an existing solution (such as Salesforce) also saves significant time.

Start Off on the Right Foot
When organizations gather better data during the discovery stage and accurately capture what the customer wants and needs, that leads to a better prioritization of opportunities. The sales development team is then able to provide more valuable customer insight when handing a lead off to a sales rep.

In today’s market, a customer-focused sales motion process is imperative to success. According to a recent study, 89% of business customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. Gathering and acting on feedback makes this possible. An organization’s response to what they learn proves to the customer that they are truly listening and want to solve their problems. This instant visibility into customers’ needs enables organizations to quickly gauge how to engage with customers, prioritize opportunities, and pinpoint areas of improvement – all the while becoming that trusted advisor.

Build a Single Source of Truth
Having a single view of the customer goes a long way toward supporting customer engagement goals. In many organizations, however, customer data can be found scribbled on notepads, sitting in spreadsheets, or scattered across multiple platforms. Information that does make it into CRMs is often incomplete and incorrect.

Organizations need to house all assessments and workflows in a single repository that is integrated with their CRM – enabling sales teams access to clean, real-time data within the systems and processes they use every day.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
If sales teams have valuable insights at their fingertips, they can deliver hyper-personalized buying experiences for customers and close more deals. Best of all, they don’t need to recreate processes to make it happen.

In today’s competitive marketplace and ever-changing world, a significant part of differentiation is based on how organizations listen, engage, and serve their customers. To do so, companies must leverage feedback and insights throughout the entire sales process – from initial engagement to post-sales delivery. Having the data is one thing but embedding it into your processes and sales motion is critical to the sales organization’s success – and, most importantly, to how you find, get, and keep those meaningful relationships with your customers.